The Biblical Roots of the Sign of the Cross

Stephen Beale
Few actions so clearly distinguish a person as a Catholic in our culture as the Sign of the
Cross.
Contrary to what some Protestants would have you think, the Sign of the Cross dates back to
the earliest times. In third century, Tertullian wrote, At every forward step and movement, at
every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit
at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life,
we trace upon the forehead the sign. A number of other Church Fathers also attest to the
use of the Sign of the Cross early on, including St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril of
Jerusalem.
The Sign of the Cross in the New Testament
But does the Sign of the Cross go back as far as the Bible?
For Catholics, the Sign of the Cross does not need to be explicitly recorded in the Scriptures
in order to justify its use. The Sign of the Cross simply afrms in gestures the core of the
creedthe existence of the Trinity and the crucifxion of Jesus. Only the most reactionary of
anti-Catholic prejudices would see in this gesture something to be argued against.
But it just so happens that there is compelling biblical evidence that supports this practice.
The evidence is hidden in a book whose very name suggests the unveiling of concealed
concealeda book so flled with tales of beasts, a seven-headed dragon, horse-like locusts,
and a two hundred million-strong army of fre-breathing steeds that you might have missed
where it talks about anything like the Sign of the Cross: the Book of Revelation.
In Revelation 7, John witnesses four angels at the four corners of the earth, holding back
storm winds ready to wreak havoc on the earth and sea.
Then I saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried
out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea,
Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the
servants of our God. I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one
hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites (Revelation 7:2-4,
New American Bible, Rev. Ed.)
Catholic commentators have traditionally associated the seal on the foreheads of the
servants of God with the Sign of the Cross. (For example, see the Haydock Bible
Commentary here and Scott Hahns book Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their
Biblical Roots.)
The book makes two more references to a sign on the forehead. In Revelation 14:1, John
sees the same assembly of believers with the name of the Father and Son on their
foreheads. And, in Revelation 22:4, while an angel is leading John on a tour of the New
Jerusalem that descended out of heaven, he is told that the servants of God who live in the
celestial city will have Gods name on their foreheads.
The idea of a sign or a seal marking members of the Church as Gods own also surfaces
elsewhere in the New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 1:22, Paul writes that, the one who gives
us security with you in Christ and who anointed us is God; he has also put his seal upon us
and given the Spirit in our hearts as a frst installment. Similar language is used in
Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30, in which Paul talks about how Christians have been sealed with
the Holy Spirit.
Although often translated as sealed, the Greek word in these three texts is the same as the
one used in Revelation 7:3, sphragiz, which one biblical concordance defnes as to set a
seal upon, mark with a seal, to seal for a number of purposes, including security from Satan
and to prove ones testimony to a person that he is what he professes to be. (Click here for
the full defnition.)
All three verses are clearly describing the sacrament of baptism, according to the Haydock
Bible Commentary. The sacramental imagery is unmistakable: it is through baptism that our
membership in the Church is sealed. And it is in baptism that we receive the frst
installment, if you will, of graces to come through life in the Churchparticularly through
frequent prayer and reception of the other sacraments.
Such baptismal language strengthens the connection with the Sign of the Cross, which is
accompanied by the words, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spiritthe
same words with which we are baptized. As then-Cardinal Ratzinger once described it, the
Sign of the Cross as the summing up and re-acceptance of our baptism.
The Sign is the Cross
What did this sign or seal look like? None of the above verses ofer specifcs. For that, we
have to go deeper into the Scriptures.
Commentators, both Catholic and Protestant, have seen Revelation 7:3 as an allusion back
to Ezekiel 9:4, where we read Gods instructions to a linen-clad man in one of the prophets
visions: Lord said to him: Pass through the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark
the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the abominations practiced within it.
A number of commentators, most notably St. Jerome, have concluded that the mark was
cross-shaped.
Specifcally, St. Jerome says the mark was shaped like the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet,
which, in its earliest forms had a cross-like shape.
Now what made Jerome think this?
The sources that were readily available, like the Haydock Bible Commentary and others,
dont elaborate, but its clear where he got the idea by taking a look at the Hebrew text for
Ezekiel 9:4. There, the word for mark is tav (thats the transliterated spelling; a phonetic
spelling would be tw or thau). Thats also the Hebrew word for the last letter of its alphabet
(according to these language sites here and here).
(It might help, before proceeding further, to recall that languages have words for the letters in
their alphabets. Often these words contain they letter they are naming. So, for example, the
last letter in our alphabet is Z, but the word for Z is actually zee. Likewise, our word for the
letter B is bee, which happens to also be the name for a certain type of insect. Its the same
idea with Hebrew. The word for its last letter is tav which is also the word for mark.)
Now, what was so exciting for St. Jerome and others is that in its ancient forms the letter tav
looked like a cross. Specifcally, around 2,000 BC the letter was shaped like St. Georges
Cross. Around 1,000 BCa few hundred years before the writing of Ezekielit still had a
cross-shape but was more like St. Andrews Cross. (See below illustration.)
Now, in Ezekiel 9, the mark was to be put on the foreheads of those who grieved and
lamented the idolatry and abominations of their fellow Israelites. Those so marked would be
saved from the destructed that was to be visited upon the sinners. For Catholic Christians
reading the Old Testament, its all just too much of a coincidence that the Hebrew word mark
is also the Hebrew word for a letter of its alphabet that was shaped like a crossthe
instrument with which salvation is ofered to all men.
Over the centuries, this interpretation of Ezekiel 9:4 has been taken seriously by saints and
scholars alike.
In 1215, Pope Innocent III opened the Fourth Lateran Council with a rousing sermon on
Ezekiel 9. St. Francis, who attended the council, was reportedly so inspired that he
embraced the tau (the Greek letter that is the counterpart to the Hebrew letter tav) as the
emblem of his order, according to historian Warren Carroll.
St. Jeromes cross-centered view of Ezekiel 9:4 has continued to be taken seriously since
then. Centuries later, in the early 1800s, the noted Catholic commentator George Haydock
cites it. And, even a Protestant commentator in the same century, British Methodist
theologian Adam Clarke, lends it some credence.
Catholic Bibles today continue to afrm the cross-imagery hidden in Ezekiel 9:4. In the verse
as quoted above, that interpretation is inserted where an ellipsis reads above. In the Douay-
Rheims translation, the name of the letter, thau, is ofered. The New American Bible
recognizing that most readers dont know what a thau is, much less what it looks like
instead says that God instructed the linen-clad man to mark an X on the foreheads. Either
way, St. Jeromes interpretation still carries water today in Catholic exegetical circles.
All this is to say that the Sign of the Cross is indeed a distinctly Catholic (and Orthodox)
practice, but it is also one that is deeply rooted in both the Old and New Testaments. Its
witness to a faith that is ever ancient, yet ever new is yet another way the Sign of the Cross
symbolizes the heart of what we believe and practice as Catholics.
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